On Monday, 20 April, parliamentarians of the European Union member states will gather in the Saeima to discuss the topicalities in the area of digital economy. The agenda of the meeting covers such topics as the Big Data, cloud computing, privacy and security of the cyber space, as well as employment in digital economy.  The Meeting of the Chairpersons of the Committees on the Economic and Digital Affairs is the fifth event hosted by the Saeima within the framework of the Latvian Presidency of the Council of the EU.

The meeting will take place in the Plenary Chamber, with an opening address by Gundars Daudze, Deputy Speaker of the Saeima; Romāns Naudiņš, Chairman of the Economic, Agricultural, Environmental and Regional Policy Committee; as well as Edgars Tavars, Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development. 

“The rapidly growing information technology sector offers unprecedented opportunities to promote the competitiveness of the EU. The main advantage of digital economy is knowledge-based products with high added value. Concurrently, further development of the sector requires the EU to improve the legal framework and tap the potential of the single market in an active and coordinated manner,” said Romāns Naudiņš, Chairman of the Economic, Agricultural, Environmental and Regional Policy Committee of the Saeima.

The first session of the meeting will be dedicated to the Big Data and cloud computing as resources of digital economy, and it will feature the following speakers: Arnis Daugulis, Deputy State Secretary for ICT & eGovernment of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development of Latvia; Bernd Becker, President of EuroCloud Europe; and Juris Gulbis, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Lattelecom. 

In the second session, the parliamentarians will discuss privacy and security in digital space. In this session the participants will hear from Marju Lauristin, Member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament; Zoran Stančič, Deputy Director-General of the Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology of the European Commission; and Andris Ambainis, Professor at the Faculty of Computing of the University of Latvia. 

The third and final session will be dedicated to education and employment in a digital economy with the following speakers: Dana Reizniece-Ozola, Minister for Economics of the Republic of Latvia; Dervla O’Neill, Operations and Communications Manager of Digital Skills Academy of the Digital Hub; Mārtiņš Kālis, Chief Executive of the programme Mission Possible; and Mārtiņš Vaivars, Head of Finance at Infogram.

The participants of the meeting will have an opportunity to attend an exhibition of IT innovations created by Latvian enterprises.  

During the break at 13:00, the traditional family photo of the chairpersons will be taken in the Plenary Chamber of the Saeima. 

Live stream of the meeting will be available on the website of the Parliamentary Dimension of the Latvian Presidency at http://parleu2015.lv/en. For the programme of the meeting, please visit http://parleu2015.lv/files/digitala-konference/programme_digital_eng_15-04-2015.pdf 

The meeting is scheduled to start on Monday, 20 April at 09:00 in the Plenary Chamber of the Saeima, Jēkaba iela 11.

Att. Media representatives:
Information on accreditation for events organised by the Saeima in the framework of the Latvian Presidency is available at: http://parleu2015.lv/en/media-1 

Video on economic and digital affairs in Latvia and the EU is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BNDvkO3tX8&list=PLaJvQ6N6O64JOc1VJOCBGe5EarMvPSttW&index=1

Saeima Press Service